The New York City police department plans to pilot the unmanned aircrafts in response to complaints about large gatherings, including private events, over Labor Day weekend, officials announced Thursday.
“If a caller states there’s a large crowd, a large party in a backyard, we’re going to be utilizing our assets to go up and go check on the party,” Kaz Daughtry, the assistant NYPD Commissioner, said at a press conference.
The plan drew immediate backlash from privacy and civil liberties advocates, raising questions about whether such drone use violated existing laws for police surveillance.
“It’s a troubling announcement and it flies in the face of the POST Act,” said Daniel Schwarz, a privacy and technology strategist at the New York Civil Liberties Union, referring to a 2020 city law that requires the NYPD to disclose its surveillance tactics. “Deploying drones in this way is a sci-fi inspired scenario.”
I miss the early 2000s WokFi craze – wifi and cheap off-the-shelf solutions are so widespread these days.
I used to “borrow” internet from the library that was 2 miles away. I waterproofed a USB wifi dongle and zip tied it to the feedhorn of an old Direct TV dish. I brought the setup anytime we had a LAN party at a house that didn’t have broadband internet.